


who would bear This heavy servitude one moment more?

by sonicenvy



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Introspection, catch me out here posting more random lucifer fic, weird au, wing fic, your local lit major posts more fic with titles from poems
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-03
Updated: 2019-02-03
Packaged: 2019-10-21 07:24:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17638367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sonicenvy/pseuds/sonicenvy
Summary: God created his angels to Serve Him, each of them filled with Purpose. Lucifer is still an angel, and his souls still seek a master.Title of the fic is from the poemServitudeby Ivor Gurney . If the consistency and plotting of this fic is a bit wonky it's because i wrote it in icloud notes after waking up in a cold sweat at three in the morning, and i am posting it here (largely) un-edited because i like the flow-y lyrical quality i ended up with in this fic.





	who would bear This heavy servitude one moment more?

**Author's Note:**

> i dont own lucifer or the characters therein. un-beta'd so all mistakes are mine. as always y'all should feed ur local fic writers with comments!

At first Lucifer doesn’t even notice it; the changes in his life have happened in slow, tiny steps, quiet in the grand scheme of noise that surrounds him. If he starts to do what Chloe asks him to, it’s because she’s his friend, a person he cares about and values. If listening to her better can make her life easier, put a smile on her face and ease the tension in her small, fragile human frame, then he is happy, fulfilled, glad he is being a good friend to her.

 

These days, the emptiness that has lain in his soul and his heart since the Fall is almost non-present. He feels whole and content even though he hasn’t managed to remove his wings. It’s been a week now since he’s last even thought about them, since his last bloody, painful attempt at severing them.

 

The emptiness in him only resurfaces when he is alone. The silence in Lucifer’s empty penthouse becomes more difficult to face each day. Angels were never meant to be solitary creatures; their wings and the Grace they gave them were a chain binding them all together, a tether to keep them from straying too far from home.

 

These days he manufactures any and every excuse to spend more time with Chloe and her spawn. When he is with them he feels warm and full; he aches for precious little.

 

Today, he sits at his piano plunking out the notes of some song from the last Disney film he’d viewed with Chloe and Beatrice — was it only last night? He already feels jumpy, yearning, reaching, wanting and anxious. Every few moments he looks over at his silent phone, waiting for it to ring. As the last note from the tune is swallowed by the silence of his home, Amenadiel walks in on him.

 

“Luci!” his brother says, bright and smiling.

 

What brings Amenadiel here? Lucifer is not in the mood to speak to his brother now. He is irritated and cold, longing, reaching for something he cannot name.

 

“What brings you here brother?” he asks, voice sharp and harsh, scowling at Amenadiel.

 

“Mom and I have some new leads on finding the missing piece,” he says.

 

The flaming sword. It seems meaningless; truthfully, he has no interest in the whole endeavor. Heaven isn’t home. Once, when he’d first landed in Hell he’d longed for it, reaching, yearning, for the first time in his whole existence experiencing loss and obsessive want. The cord that tied him to Heaven and to Father is frayed and irrelevant now; he has no interest in whatever cosmic Purpose he is meant to be called to. He’d told them his home was here, on Earth in sharp, unabating anger, but, upon reflection he knew that it had been the truth.

 

When he failed to respond, to react to Amenadiel’s words, the excitement drained from his brother’s face.

 

“Luci?” Amenadiel says, haltingly, voice low and dripping with concern, “Are you okay brother?”

 

Lucifer doesn’t know how to answer him. He is quickly becoming nothing but yearning, wanting, heavy and drowning. Why hasn’t Chloe called him? Doesn’t she want his Service?

 

Amenadiel studies Lucifer’s face, quiet and thoughtful-like. Something on Amenadiel’s face shifts; some conclusion in his brother’s mind has clicked into place.

 

“You’ve found a new Purpose,” Amenadiel says, softly, reverently, awe flowing out from him into the still too silent air of the penthouse.

 

Lucifer’s phone stays silent. Doesn’t Chloe want his service? Why won’t she call? He wants, yearns to be needed by her.

 

“It’s her, isn’t it, Luci?” Amenadiel says, “You want to Serve her.”

 

They both know what Service means. Lucifer can see the same desire in his brother’s eyes, dampened, but holding out stubbornly. Amenadiel has fallen from Grace, his body has become weak and nearly human. The half of his soul that lives in his wings is rotting away. Still he is an angel. They are both angels, sons of God.

 

God created his angels to Serve Him, each of them filled with Purpose. There was a time where Lucifer had Served God, blindly, willingly. He had been full and warm in Heaven. A different spark of desire had thrummed in him then, the spark that made him Question, made him waver in his Duty.

 

A pause, a beat, silence swallowing them both.

 

Amenadiel waits for Father to Call him back, to give him Direction and purpose, but the spark on yearning that burns behind his eyes tells Lucifer that God has not spoke to his first-born son in some time. Here and now, Amenadiel is stranded without Purpose, without duty. His brother is a soldier waiting for a command that isn’t coming. He too is filled with chilling emptiness, his souls burning with  _want._ It has made it all too easy for mum to settle herself into his life, to gain Amenadiel as her ally in her latest schemes.

 

The difference between them is that Lucifer has found a new Purpose. He has found someone to give him Purpose, Order, Direction. Amenadiel is lost for the first time in his existence and is a tiny boat, unmoored, being tossed about in the stormy sea of choice, aimlessness.

 

Lucifer’s head is quickly being crowded by the singular desire of being needed by Chloe Decker. He isn’t sure whether he envies or pities Amenadiel in this moment.

 

“You love Chloe,” Amenadiel says, voice wrapped in certainty.

 

“I—” Lucifer says, voice hoarse, words stuck in his throat.

 

To deny his brother’s assertation would be a lie. Before today, he hadn’t known, hadn’t seen his love.

 

Today, he wants nothing more than to prostrate himself before Chloe Decker and offer her his eternal Devotion and Service. He would gladly Serve her blind, and unquestioning. His stomach feels heavy, his palms sticky with sweat.

 

Amenadiel gives him a look of deep pity, but Lucifer knows his brother too well not to notice the envy buried within.

 

Before he can move, before he can speak, his phone rings, slicing open the silence between them. The sound of it echoes throughout the penthouse and startles him to action. Chloe is calling. Warmth washes over him. He grabs the phone immediately, but he forces himself to wait until the third ring to answer it answer it. It is best that he not look  _too_ eager.

 

“Chloe,” he says trying his best for nonchalance, squelching the desire to beg her for commands that is quickly rising in him, “has there been a murder?”

 

On the other end of the line, she laughs. The sound is pure and tastes like the sweetest nectar washing down his throat.

 

“Yeah,” she says, “You busy?”

 

He trembles. Amenadiel shoots him a look that is half amusement, half concern.

 

“I think I can pencil you in darling,” he says. And he is proud,  _proud_ , that he has managed, this far to keep himself from telegraphing his deep desire to Serve her out of his voice. His voice is even, light. The  _darling_  slips out, but he is past caring about that.

 

She laughs again and he is glad,  _glad_. She rattles off the address of the crime scene and instructs him to meet her there. His body vibrates with the pleasure, long denied of having Purpose, of being Commanded. He stands up, pockets his phone and puts his jacket on, making to leave.

 

“There’s no use in asking you to help Mom and I today is there?” Amenadiel says, voice rich with sorrow and laughter.

 

All he can manage in the present is a soft shake of the head, but it’s enough for Amenadiel. His brother turns and takes his leave of the penthouse, stepping into the elevator.

 

“Tell Chloe I said hello,” Amenadiel says as the doors close.

 

In the five minutes it takes to find his car keys, he muses on his problem. Chloe Decker has him, one of the most powerful beings in all of Creation at her utter mercy and yet, she remains innocent of it. Perhaps, he thinks, things are better this way. It is better that she remains ignorant of all he can do, all she could make him do in her name, under her Will.

 

So, he vows to hold his tongue around her and swallow his words of submission, the binding words of servitude he so wants to give her. The promises he wants to make will remain unspoken. He is still Free, for the present.

 

On his way to the crime scene, he picks up a coffee for her, mixing it to her exact specifications. He waits with eager anticipation for the smile that will play across her face when he hands it to her.

 

To the Chloe in his mind he whispers, _I am your humble servant_. For now, it is enough to comfortably fill the aching in his soul and warm him again.

 


End file.
